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I'm a bit confused. I have heard the theory that "there are no wolves on fenris" ..and that the legendary fenrisian wolves are actually Vlyka Fenryka who have succumbed to the curse of the Canis Helix - and transformed fully into werewolves and whatnot.

But aside from the fact that this kind of makes the whole thing feel rather ..dirty -- they walk around wearing the flayed skins of their fallen kin? -- this raises a really confusing question: I could have sworn that I read that Leman Russ was raised by wolves...that.. if the above theory is true.. couldn't have existed before there were space marines on that planet.

What's going on here?

Read the HH books.

For those of us who dont have the means or inclination to read the HH books, what do they say?

There are no wolves on Fenris.

 cincydooley wrote:
There are no wolves on Fenris.

-__-

Read this:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/40k-lore-there-are-no-wolves-on-fenris.html

There's also been speculation that the warp could potentially be impactful as well.

That is just... SPECIAL!

I didn't find that especially satisfying either. Hrm. Basically the cliffs notes of that work out to:

The theory is that the fenrisian wolves are failed space wolves, but they have to predate the astartes. So the Canis Helix has to be from the native population, not the gene seed.

But if that's true, then why is the canis helix talked about as a defect in the Space Wolf Gene Seed? In theory, planted in a non-fenrisian there would be no canis helix if that gene is carried by natives.. but more importantly:

Russ himself wasn't a native of the planet by any stretch. He was a test tube baby cooked up in the Allfather's meth lab. So why would he be described as having fangs and ..well. being a giant, barrel-chested Fenrisian? none of his original legion should have had wolfy attributes either.. His gene seed should be pure.

Even if we argue that over time that implanting the seed into fenrisians and recovering it somehow "tainted" the seed, the originals should all be without mutation and none of the original earthling humans should have it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ergh. Further reading and research offers an even more clunky and unsatisfying explanation:

The original colonists were genetically tailored with human wolf genes to be better suited to the climate AND it just happens that tens of thousands of years later, old Emps makes a primarch who happens to have canine DNA in his gene seed who happens to get whisked off into the warp and land on a planet settled by wolf-DNA-settlers. Meanwhile, Emps leads an army of wolf DNA people to wolf-DNA planet to reclaim Wolf DNA son who has become Wolf King of wolf planet because he happened to have a similar mutation as the population. And then, when our powers combine, they become Captain Wolf, by mixing wolf DNA geneseed with wolf DNA settler stock, which causes them all to .. become double-wolfed and suffer the curse of the wolfen.

Wouldn't the easier and less convoluted explanation amount to some kind of warp nonsense?

It is a population whose pre-Imperial beliefs were about wolf-spirit gods on a planet that sits on the edge of the greatest warp rift ever known. Rather than several strains of functionally identical mutation in different populations that happen to land on the same planet, it would almost be more straightforward to claim that there is some kind of wolf-flavored warp entity that has touched the planet and twists its inhabitants in its own image.

It explains why the 13th company (once lost in the warp) fell fully to their curse, and why the werewolf curse is even a thing. It wouldn't be the first time a gene seed was corrupted by the warp either.

 kazian wrote:
The original colonists were genetically tailored with human wolf genes to be better suited to the climate AND it just happens that tens of thousands of years later, old Emps makes a primarch who happens to have canine DNA in his gene seed who happens to get whisked off into the warp and land on a planet settled by wolf-DNA-settlers. Meanwhile, Emps leads an army of wolf DNA people to wolf-DNA planet to reclaim Wolf DNA son who has become Wolf King of wolf planet because he happened to have a similar mutation as the population. And then, when our powers combine, they become Captain Wolf, by mixing wolf DNA geneseed with wolf DNA settler stock, which causes them all to .. become double-wolfed and suffer the curse of the wolfen.

This is the story as presented in A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, yes. I believe you have summarized it better than anyone before.

You win many internetz.

 Omegus wrote:

 kazian wrote:
The original colonists were genetically tailored with human wolf genes to be better suited to the climate AND it just happens that tens of thousands of years later, old Emps makes a primarch who happens to have canine DNA in his gene seed who happens to get whisked off into the warp and land on a planet settled by wolf-DNA-settlers. Meanwhile, Emps leads an army of wolf DNA people to wolf-DNA planet to reclaim Wolf DNA son who has become Wolf King of wolf planet because he happened to have a similar mutation as the population. And then, when our powers combine, they become Captain Wolf, by mixing wolf DNA geneseed with wolf DNA settler stock, which causes them all to .. become double-wolfed and suffer the curse of the wolfen.

This is the story as presented in A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, yes. I believe you have summarized it better than anyone before.

You win many internetz.

And once again my decision not to touch HH books has proven to be a wise one.

Don't think too hard about the Space Wolves.

Their fluff is... stupid.

Well, highly convenient placements for the Primarchs is nothing new. The psychic guy ended up on a planet of sorcerers, the religious guy ended up on a plant of cultitsts, the slightly deranged guy landed on a planet with the worst that humanity had to offer, the guy who can sneak around extra sneakily lands on a prison plant, the extra hardy one lands on poison planet, etc.

At some point you have to start to wonder if these characteristics were present in the first place, or if the Primarchs were blanks that molded to adapt to their circumstances. In fact, that would make far more sense to me. Magnus landed around a bunch of sorcerers, so he became a sorcerer. Lorgar landed around a bunch of fanatics, so he became a fanatic. Kurze landed on a planet of sadists and murderers, so he became a sadistic murderer. Corax landed on a planet that required stealth, so all of a sudden he's a ninja. Guilliman was raised by a leader and administrator, and grew up to administrate and lead. Horus was raised by a genocidal megalomaniac, and became, you guessed it, a genocidal megalomaniac.

With Russ, I would imagine his geneseed and that of the Terran Wolves was pure, but in his case since he was raised and nursed by wolves, he absorbed their genetic makeup. For the Legion, as losses were replaced by Fenrisians, their genetic variances were imparted onto the transplanted geneseed and then passed on further.

If I remember correctly, the Canix Helix wasn't a thing until the Emperor presented it to Russ when they found Fenris and started recruiting from there exclusively. Correct me if I'm wrong. If so, it is conceivable that this concoction is needed to stabilize the geneseed for use in the native humans who have left-over DNA from the original gene-tailored settlers. Given that use of the Canis Helix fails 100% in non-Fenrisians, it's probably all a matter of getting the balance of Canis Helix and weirdo native DNA right. So give pure Terran geneseed to a Fenrisian = freakish wolf-like mutant, give too much Canis Helix to someone with only traces of tailored DNA = freakish wolf-like mutant, get the ingredients of sugar and spice just right = charming Space Wolf.

Of course, the ever-awful and psychologically-traumatizing Deliverance Lost pokes a hole in that theory by outright stating that one strain of Primarch DNA had dog DNA in it, but I pretend that book (and Outcast Dead) never happened. I rather read Goto's flights of fancy than Gav Thrope. Seriously. At least Goto's fiction doesn't even try to pretend it's not incredibly stupid.

Oh, and to correct someone's comment earlier that said Space Wolves never referred to themselves as wolves but as Vlka Fenrika, Vlka Fenrika means "wolves of Fenris".

I have always thought that Russ was untainted and pure before he landed on Fenris. Then, at some point when he was still a child and was living with wolves he got somehow infected with Canis Helix. Because he is Primarch this minor infection only made him more awesome.

What comes to wolves (which live in the wilderness of Fenris) before and after Russ, I think those are humans who have succumbed to Canis Helix. So, Fenrisian Space Marines are not wearing skins of their kin because Space Wolves who succumb to Canis Helix turn into Wulfen, not wolf.

EDIT:

@ Omegus. My thoughts exactly.

Maybe Chaos thought it was a good idea to scatter the primarchs on to planets that were similar to their skill sets and behaviours. Then by doing that the primarchs would become exaggerated versions of their "original" purposes leading to perhaps fracturing amongst them?

Just putting that out there

So with regards to the wolves on fenris thing... the settler thing is probably the only thing to me that makes the most sense. Is it possible that the initiates that succumbed to the canis helix resulted in thunderwolves? If the regular wolves were colonists?

kazian wrote:I could have sworn that I read that Leman Russ was raised by wolves

Probably in the White Dwarf Index Astartes article?

"It seems highly likely that the Primarch was adopted by a Fenrisian she-wolf; Leman Russ himself mentioned his lupine parentage on more than one occasion. Russ' wolf companions, Freki and Geri, are widely believed to have been his original pack-brothers, growing to maturity at much the same time."

kazian wrote:Wouldn't the easier and less convoluted explanation amount to some kind of warp nonsense?

There's always the option to simply disregard ideas that don't appear to fit in with what one has read elsewhere.
This setting is not even intended to portray a uniform background, and the HH novels are no different when it comes to conflict with other sources. Hell, they are contradicted even by the 6E TT rulebook.

By the same token, the bit about Russ having been raised by wolves could of course simply be myth and legend as well. There are very little cold hard facts when it comes to such details in 40k fluff, so it is left to the individual reader to make sense of everything and essentially pick what version of the setting they like the most.

Omegus wrote:At some point you have to start to wonder if these characteristics were present in the first place, or if the Primarchs were blanks that molded to adapt to their circumstances.

This is a rather clever idea. Never thought of this.

It is a population whose pre-Imperial beliefs were about wolf-spirit gods on a planet that sits on the edge of the greatest warp rift ever known. Rather than several strains of functionally identical mutation in different populations that happen to land on the same planet, it would almost be more straightforward to claim that there is some kind of wolf-flavored warp entity that has touched the planet and twists its inhabitants in its own image.

Fenris is not Cadia, being about half-way between Cadia and Terra, and the Eye of Terror did not exist in pre-Imperial days anyway.

Because it wasn't the warp gods that scattered the primarchs, it was the emperor, the gods just didn't let them get to where the emperor was sending them, fulgrim was.supposed to land on chogoris the white scars homeworld

Everything you have been told is a lie.






There are no wolves on Fenris, there was a wolf-like alien species on the planet when we first arrived and we decided to just call them wolves.

There are no wolves on Fenris, there was a descendent dog species we brought with us that went feral and deevolved into something like wolves.

There are no wolves on Fenris, just really big foxes...

There are no wolves on Fenris, etc etc etc...

Yes, if only Magnus and the Space Wolves had discovered their mutual love of semantic minutiae, the Heresy would have turned out very differently.

 Psienesis wrote:

It is a population whose pre-Imperial beliefs were about wolf-spirit gods on a planet that sits on the edge of the greatest warp rift ever known. Rather than several strains of functionally identical mutation in different populations that happen to land on the same planet, it would almost be more straightforward to claim that there is some kind of wolf-flavored warp entity that has touched the planet and twists its inhabitants in its own image.

Fenris is not Cadia, being about half-way between Cadia and Terra, and the Eye of Terror did not exist in pre-Imperial days anyway.

I thought the eye of terror was born with slaanesh? like.. 11,000 years ago, fall of the eldar and all that. That's safely pre-imperial.

It means that the Space Wolves ride around on the backs of hairier, naked Space Wolves.

 Formosa wrote:
Because it wasn't the warp gods that scattered the primarchs, it was the emperor, the gods just didn't let them get to where the emperor was sending them, fulgrim was.supposed to land on chogoris the white scars homeworld

Can I have a source link to back that claim as that I would find an interesting read.

I may be wrong, but my interpretation has always been that the phrase refers to the Space Wolves themselves.
G
According to Prospero Burns they hated that named, and preferred Vlka Fenryka.

However, what I'm referring to is their personas and traits. Rather than being the feral, bestial attack dogs that others thought they were, they were honourable and humane "men." Not wolves, beasts or animals.

So simply put- "There are no wolves on Fenris" simply means "The VI are not Wolves, they are Astartes."

Uh, yeah, except all their actions point to feral, bestial attack dogs. They can simper about being more evolved and enlightened as they shuffle around their dark caves playing with bones (source: Prospero Burns) all they want, they are still the most primitive and superstitious of all the Legions.

Yes, this all comes down to barebones semantics! That's so simplistic, it borders on slowed.

 Omegus wrote:
Uh, yeah, except all their actions point to feral, bestial attack dogs. They can simper about being more evolved and enlightened as they shuffle around their dark caves playing with bones (source: Prospero Burns) all they want, they are still the most primitive and superstitious of all the Legions.

Yes, this all comes down to barebones semantics! That's so simplistic, it borders on slowed.

What you see as barbaric and backward they see as culture and tradition. Exactly the same as when the Brits arrived in the New World.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
Uh, yeah, except all their actions point to feral, bestial attack dogs. They can simper about being more evolved and enlightened as they shuffle around their dark caves playing with bones (source: Prospero Burns) all they want, they are still the most primitive and superstitious of all the Legions.

Yes, this all comes down to barebones semantics! That's so simplistic, it borders on slowed.

What you see as barbaric and backward they see as culture and tradition. Exactly the same as when the Brits arrived in the New World.

Very much this.

Its also probably worth noting that pre-christian European cultures actively venerated wolves. They have always been associated with warrior cultures, and for good reason. Wolves are extremely intelligent, social pack animals with a social order and hierarchy. They fight as a team and are seen as extremely loyal. It's only after Christianity becomes the norm (along with the perspective that men are something entirely apart from the animal world) that wolves are seen as devilish or evil.

Whether this applies to 40k or not is an interesting question - would the tribal culture of Fenris have christian-like taboos about the animal and see it as a slur? Or would they venerate and respect the animals in the way the pre-christian christian European cultures did? I rather suspect the latter if we were talking about "how people actually behave." I suppose the actual fact of the thing would depend on the prejudice and views of the writer handling the subject.

I think I am adopting, as my own cannon, the notion that the wolves are part of the natural ecology of the planet - possibly playing with the idea of the whole planet being warp-touched by the eye of terror. It's the least convoluted way to understand the situation, I think.

I think it may be warp touched, but In a benevolent way. Remember the wolves don't consider their rune priests, who are psykers, to be the same as the "sorcerers" of other chapters. Maybe there's actually something to that?